1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to suspensions of wheels of motor vehicles, and more particularly to front suspensions for front wheels of the motor vehicles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For clarifying the invention, one conventional front suspension shown in Japanese First Provisional Publication 5-178041 will be briefly described.
In this conventional front suspension, a lower end of a steering knuckle is connected through two lower links to the vehicle body in such a manner that the steering knuckle can swing up and down. A connecting member is pivotally connected to an upper end of the steering knuckle. The connecting member is connected to a lower end of a shock absorber so that the connecting member can swing up and down together with the steering knuckle. One end of an upper link is pivotally connected to the vehicle body. The other end of the upper link is branched into two portions which are pivotally connected to the connecting member, so that the upper link can swing up and down. The connecting member is so arranged that an axis thereof is positioned inside an imaginary king pin axis. With this arrangement, the front suspension possesses both an advantage of a strut type suspension and that of a double wishbone type suspension.
As is described hereinabove, in the conventional front suspension, the upper link is connected to the connecting member at two points. Furthermore, the upper link is so arranged as to pivot about an axis substantially parallel with a longitudinal axis of the vehicle.
However, even this arrangement has caused the front suspension from providing users with satisfaction due to the following reasons.
Due to the two point connection between the upper link and the connecting member, two resilient bushes or joints are inevitably needed, which causes increase in weight of the suspension. For the pivotal movement of the upper link about the axis, special and thus expensive bush or joint is needed. Furthermore, due to the two joints (or bushes) which are spaced in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle, the suspension has an increased dimension in that direction, which increases a possibility of interference with a tire particularly when steered.